fl^' L/ 






286 
W22 E 

367 P 



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t»ti$t# 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE ASSOCIATION 



Oldest Inhabitants 



DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 



|n Washington, on the Fourth of jIuly, 1867, 



The Hon. Peter G. Washington, 



Ont of ils Vice-Presidents. 



WASHINGTON : 

JOHN T. BURCH, STATIONER. 
1867. 






'3 



mtm%, 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE ASSOCIATION 



Oldest Inhabitants 



DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, 



Washington, on the j^ourth of |JuLy, 186' 



The Hon. Peter G. Washington, 



> ■ " 

«^' '- One uf its Vice-Pi^siJeriti. 






ct Washington: 
JOHN T. BURCH, STATlONliR. 
1867. 



-/ 



then abounded, and displayed itself, throughout the war, 
in the individual sacrifices it yielded to the common cause. 
The habits of the country were almost entirely rural. A 
rich and virgin soil repaid the labors of agriculture. Men were 
content with the quiet enjoyments, and to perform the retired 
offices, of life — the education of their children, the practice of 
hospitality, and other neighborly duties and amenities — 
without an aspiration beyond. G-eneral Washington, in his 
retirement at Mount Vernon, after the close of the French 
war, who was by nature and sentiment an agriculturist, was 
a specimen of the country gentleman of his day. He relin- 
quished the habits of life which were congenial to his tastes, 
and yielded himself, at the call of his country, to years of 
exile, toil, and risk, with no other motive than to serve and 
defend it. 

The Declaration of Independence, which has just been read 
so impressively by our friend Dr. Blake, is a summary of 
political wisdom, as it was an act of devoted patriotism. 
It enumerates, as you have seen, the wrongs which im- 
pelled tlie colonies to that measure, pronounces their 
connection with the crown of Great Britian "severed," and 
assumes that "as free and independent States they have 
full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, 
establish commerce, and do all such other acts and things 
which independent States nuiy of right do." 

If it shall be found upon examination that the American 
people, possessing as they do, a territory which is fraught 
with every sort of industrial capability, have wisely and 
beneficially exercised the enumerated powers thus assumed 
for the nascent State, and have, under the unenumerated, 
done all those things which were necessary for the general 
welfare, the progress of civilization, and the happiness and 
elevation of man ; in other words, have fully acted out the 
correlative obligations of these assumptions, then there will 
appear proportional ground for the just pride we feel in our 
country, our race, and our institutions. 

Of this broad land, framed in the prodigality of nature, 
with the loftiest mountains^ the largest rivers^ the richest 
valleys, a climate so healthful, and a soil and sub-soil so 



various and productive, what shall be said ? That it presents 
to its favored owners every bounty of sea and land, the soil 
and the mine. Is there any one thing which is necessary to 
the subsistence or comfort of man, that it does not offer to 
his industry and enterprise? Ask the coasts of the oceans 
and sea that lave it, the Atlantic, the Gulf and the Pacific, 
and they reply, we are your barriers against the tyrannies, 
the misery, of Europe. Dotted with islets and indented with 
bays of every size and form, we furnish harbors for your 
shipping, and nurseries for its seamen. Our native denizens 
garnish the tables of rich and poor, and our annual visitants 
spread themselves up your rivers, as the quails fell amidst 
the tents of the Israelites. Ask the rivers and they reply, 
we run from North to South, cutting more than twenty 
degrees of latitude, and pass, in counter-exchange^ your sub- 
arctic and sub-tropical products. Ask the lakes — Superior, 
Huron, Michigan, Erie, and Ontario — that vast chain of 
inland seas, falling consecutively the one into another, not 
to omit Champlain and George, and they reply, before you 
had roads or Avagons, when the mountains were brought 
forth, we were here — destined to your earliest uses. Our 
aboriginal canoe has grown to the tall craft or the capacious 
steamer. On our bosoms unfettered commerce unfolds its 
native beauties, growing with your growth and strengthen- 
ing with your strength, and exchanging the diverse climactic 
products, and mingling in intercourse, harmony and love 
the sons of America, of either side. Ask the soil and it 
points to king cotton, to its I'ice, sugar, tobacco, wheat, and 
to the cattle on a thousand prairies, which browsing on their 
rich grasses, inters})ersed with the medicinal rosin weed, reflect 
the rays of the sun from their glossy sides. Ask the mines 
and they reply, behold " a land whose stones are iron, and 
out of whose hills thou mayest dig brass." Out of which 
you may also dig gold and silver, copper and lead. Yes, and 
diamonds — the black diamond — of abundance inexhaustible — 
of price "richer than rubies." In these are laid up for 
your use, the heats of ages of suns. It is the Promethean fire 
of national vitality. Dig these and be prosperous — be power- 



6 

fill, and ill projioition as wo make you powerful, lie peaceful. 
Abuse not the power we give to op])rcss less ftivored i)Coples. 
Heap not our coals upon tlieir heads, even for real or imagi- 
nary wrongs, but use them, rather, to light up on your hill- 
tops, beacons of liberty and fraternity to which the oppressed 
of the nations may resort. 

The war commenced in mere resistance, became aggressive 
for independence. Two other foreign wars have followed. 
The war of the Eevolution lasted from 1775 to 1783. The 
second war with Great Britain from 1812 to 1815, and the 
war with Mexico from 1846 to 1848. 

There need be but a bare allusion, without detail, to our 
(juasi war with Eevolutionary France in 1798, a mere war 
of reprisals, resulting in a few captures at sea ; and to the 
war with Tripoli in 1802, impinging, as it did, on the regen- 
cies of Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco, which stopped the depre- 
dations of those powers on our commerce, and rescued our 
citizens held by them in bondage. These wars were fought 
by our navy, yet in its infancy. In both, the promise of its 
germ in the revolution was maintained with a prestige of 
discipline, skill and daring, which has grown Avith its adoles- 
cence and established the eminence of its manhood. 

Keturniug to the three principal wars mentioned, who can 
look on the first, even at this late day, without a shudder at 
the inequality of the forces opposed? On the one hand, a 
nation of nearly twenty millions of people, of strong govern- 
ment, formidable on land, the mistress on the seas, rich in 
commerce and manufactures, abounding in all the elements 
of war, and practised in it. In fine, Avhose conquests had 
then covered the w^orld? On the other, a people of about 
three millions, scattered thinly along a coast of more than a 
thousand miles, from Maine to Georgia, unused to war, poor, 
without manufactures, but little commerce, and subsisting 
chiefly by husbandry. These people had been held, perhaps 
designedly, under a number of distinct colonial govern- 
ments. The colonies differed from one another in character, 
climate and habits. Under the regal government, they had 
their mutual jealousies. These jealousies continued after 



they threw that government oii', and they were unwilling to 
adopt, perhaps from a memory of its oppressions, any other, 
or at least any that should possess equal authority, in its 
stead. These jealousies, whether of the colonies or indi- 
viduals, can hardly be much censured^ as they had their 
source in an intense love of liberty ; but it is certain that 
they bore throughout the war, the bitter fruits of weak and 
divided counsels, and lead to questions of command and of 
concert of action in the field. It was not until the war had 
lasted five years, that articles of confederation were agreed 
to between the colonies, now States, and neither under these 
articles did congress possess, any more than it had assumed 
to exercise before, the authority to bind the States, far less 
the people of the States. Its only authority seems to have 
been to apportion amongst the several States the troops and 
supplies required, and to call upon them from time to time 
for their respective quotas— ^requisitions which it had no 
power to enforce, and which were complied with, with vary- 
ing delays and deficiencies, accordingly as the respective 
States were more or less exposed, and perhaps as they were 
more or less zealously aftected towards the war. We had 
advanced somewhat in political wisdom in 1789, and have 
advanced further since, and can now clearly see that the 
essence of government was not in the Congress of that day. 
The astonishment is how affairs could have been carried on 
under the polity adopted, with, the consequent conviction 
that the impotency of government, or rather the utter 
absence of any real government over the whole, was the 
greatest impediment to the successful prosecution of the war. 
Perhaps the nearest approach to government was the author- 
ity of the commander-in-chief, so far as he deemed it right 
for him to exercise it, but this authority had little other 
sanction than his weight of character, his known devotion 
to the cause, and the force and frequency of his arguments 
and expostulations addressed to congress and to the governors 
of the States, and of his ap])eals to the people, for cooperation 
and support. There was no conscription to compel ; there 
was no high bounty in money or land to allure. " Sa reputa- 
tion lui Jit une armee," 



Paucity in nuiiibeiP, poverty in supplies, Providence in 
mercy made this a defensive wai-. Upon this Fabian princi- 
ple were fought the battles of Long Island, White Plains, 
Brandywine, and others. It is not necessary nor pleasant 
to describe them, for blood and carnage are not agreeable 
retrospects to sexagenarians, and besides it is not necessary 
to claim for our troops, chiefly militia, in that war, superior 
bravery to their enemy, nor to deny what is probably true, 
tliat all peoples are brave in a right cause, properly directed, 
supplied and drilled. But the preliminaries of battles and 
their results are inductive of the genius and tone of peoples. 
In the antecedents and sequels of these of ours, we se com- 
plairent to find genius in the lead, endurance in the led, and 
that humanity in both which could see, even in an enemy 
when fallen, the universal brotherhood of man, the common 
work of God^ the common purchase of Christ. 

It was WASHiNGTOiS!.'s distinction in the lead, to maintain 
for eight years an inferior army in front of a superior, to 
attack it from time to time, often with success, but never 
to the risk of the entire destruction of his little force. We 
admire his generalship in withdrawing his defeated army 
without loss, from Long Island, and afterwards from New 
York, and his boldness in confronting the enemy on the 
Bronx and giving him battle at AVhite Plains ; but the 
heart beats — all our sympathies are awakened by the perils 
of his retreat across the Jerseys, anxiously expecting that 
English Lee, who never intended to join him^ taking strong 
positions and yielding his ground, ste^j by step. He escapes 
across the Delaware, his army reduced to 3,000 men. We 
breathe ! Wasiiingtox has interposed a broad river between 
his little force and his powerful foe ; but what is there left? 
The cause seems lost ! There is a God of battles, who does 
not always give victory to the strong. Washington, in a 
few days recrosses the Delaware, captures Trenton and 
returns with a thousand prisoners. Crosses again and cap- 
tures Princeton. Confidence is restored ; the holy cause is 
saved. To recapitulate further instances of Washington's 
generalship would be but to reiterate the eulogies of history, 
the suffrages of all military adepts. 



9 

The haidiliood of tlio troops was a tit accoMipaniiiiciit U> 
tlic genius of tlieir conunander — campaigning in winter, ill 
clad and ill fed, marching in the snow without shoes, and 
tracking it with their blood ! Did ever men " stand between 
their loved homes and war's desolation," and endure, and as 
uncomplainingly, so much? Whence came this Decian-like 
devotion in common men — in militia? Their bodies were 
hardened by virtuous agricultural toil. They were resolved 
to be free, and they were Americans. " lis avaient, en nais- 
scmt, cet air du nouveau monde, sijeune, si vivace, si petillant." 

On tbe score of humanity, the contrast between the parties 
was quite as great as in any other of their respective pecu- 
liarities and conditions. The arming of the savage against 
our frontier, the massacre of Wyoming, the burning of 
defenceless villages, the butchery of Baylor's men, the bru- 
talities of the Hessians, the murder of Hayne, the horrors of 
the Jersey Prison Ship and Sugar House, were provocations 
for doing our part towards brutalizing the war^ which it 
was hard to resist. General Washington, indeed, remon- 
strated sharply with the British on many of these enormities, 
and threatened retaliation, but he was opposed to this terri- 
ble and doubtful remedy, except under the direst necessity, 
and deeply felt the monstrosity of taking the life of one man, 
althouo;h an enemy, for a crime committed by another. It 
was under the influence of these sentiments that he caused 
Asgill, justly held in confinement under the lex talioms 
to be released ; and the young, handsome, and gallant 
captain, instead of being hung, was restored to the arms of 
his doting mother — and probably some others. 

But these atrocities are long since gone by, and with them 
their exasperations, and their unmerciful or mistaken authors, 
who unhappily thought no measures too harsh which might 
bring rebels to submission, and who, moreover, fought for 
nationalexistence if they shared the opinion, as they doubtless 
did, of Lord GtEORGe Gordon, who told George the III he 
looked upon the independence of America and the destruction 
of the British monarchy, as synonimous. 

Yorktown closed the war. The gratitude justly tlue to 



10 

France, for her aid in its capture, has ever been ]>art and 
parcel of the American character. Its crowning ghiry, 
doubtless, was Washington's surrender of his sword to con- 
gress, and his retirement to the walks of private life. 

In any account of the Revolutionary war this illustrious 
man must needs stand in the foreground. In closing this, 
two remarks are due to him. First, his immoveable calmness 
under unprovoked hostility — unfounded detraction. The 
intrigues, the cabals, the spargere voces in mdgum amhi- 
guas in Congress, of Lee, Gates, Conway, even of some of 
his trusted friends, never diverted him from his patriotic 
toil, nor ruffled his manly brow. Second, his clairvoyance — 
his wonderful industry and success in gaining information 
which enabled him to penetrate the designs of the enemy 
throughout the war, Avhilst masking his own, and thus to 
play with that enemy successfully^ that' great national game 
of chess, upon which empires depended, capturing his two 
knights at Saratoga and Yorktown with many pawns, and 
linally check-mating his king. 

The war of 1812 has been called our second war of inde- 
pendence. It was so, in a certain sense, for it was indispensable 
to the maintenance of it. Although that war redressed the 
wrongs which had led to it, it left no security that they 
would not some day be repeated, and hence it is evident 
that our real independence as a nation was not unequivo- 
cally established and acknowledged for years after it. This 
war was forced upon us by a series of wrongs, which no people 
assuming to be independent could endure. For years after 
the treaty of 1783, by which Great Britain acknowledged 
our independence^ she had refused, in violation of its provi- 
sions, to deliver up the military posts she held on our frontier 
— she refused to interchange a diplomatic mission, and 
scorned, as it was said, to make a commercial treaty with us. 
Upon the breaking out of her war with revolutionary 
France, she liegan to impress our seamen, forcibly divert our 
trade in provisions, and in the sequel, by orders in council, to 
capture and seize our ships with whatsoever laden. 

In this war, we had one material advantage over the form- 



11 

er. We had a <^ovcriiiucnt invested with constitutional 
power to call on the States and people, and thus able to com- 
bine the strength of the whole nation (which it did with but 
few exceptions) in its prosecution. 

Our population had increased to about eight millions. 
Our commerce, although limited, had been gainful. Agri- 
culture had extended and some manufactures had sprung 
up. On the other hand, our revolutionary debt was yet un- 
paid. There was but little capital in the country. Relying 
upon our insular position relatively to Europe and its distance, 
we had neglected to fortify our coasts. We had no ships 
above frigates, and an army only about in proportion. 
Canning sneered, in the House of Commons, at the military 
pretentious of a nation that had but half a dozen regiments 
for an army, and about as many frigates, with bits of striped 
bunting flying at their masts^ for a navy. Both which state- 
ments were nearly true. But Canning did not reflect that 
with a free and self-reliant people,, the sense of wrong is ever 
an over-match for nice calculations of strength. He did not 
know that our country boys take their squirrel guns along 
with their primers to school, becoming marksmen on the 
way — abecedarians there. The proficients in the two arc 
America's marked men, some of whom made their marks in 
this war. 

Having been cultivating tlie arts of peace for so many 
years, our reliance for the conduct of this war was upon the 
veterans of the former. Fatal delusion ! They had stood 
still and rusted, whilst the age had every way advanced. 
The reverses in 1812 and some in 1813 requited the national 
error. The next year, 1814, showed in the hard fought 
fields of Bridgewater, Lundy's Lane, and others — that 
republican vim had then got into its right place. 

This, our city, whose peace, order and prosperity, it is 
one of the proud objects of this association to promote, was 
entered by the enemy on the eve of the 24th of August of 
that year. I see many around me who witnessed tliat sad 
event. No wonder the wounded pride — the mortification of 
the nation at the loss of its capital, has sought relief in the 



12 

imliscriininatc censure of all who tried to defend it, but i'ailed. 
Our gallant member, Col. Jno. S. Williams, who held a staff 
appointment in our army ; all of us who were present — men 
and hoys — know that the loss of Bladensburg was not the 
fault of the soldiery. He knows with what reluctance and 
in what perfect order, Peter, Stull, Davidson and others, left 
the field ; how they gnashed their teeth when they found the 
head of the column, instead of halting at, had passed througli 
the toll-gate, and how they chafed almost to mutiny, when 
it passed down by the capitol and thus gave it up. He knows 
that then and there, on that hill, whilst the army was thus 
moving down, a committee was organized to demand of the 
President the dismissal of the Secretary of War, to whom all 
attributed the disaster, and that the President did it. 

We remember the sorrow of that night, when the sky was 
lighted up all around by the blaze of our burning buildings, 
and of many a night after it. But joy came on that morning 
when the general gladness witnessed that New Orleans was 
safe, and the veterans of Wellington driven back by the heroic 
Jackson and his militia ignominously to their ships! 

It were superfluous to recount to you our many triumphs 
at sea — the capture of the Guerriere by Hull, of the Macedo- 
nian by Decatur, and others, including entire fleets on Erie 
and Champlainby Perry and Macdonough ; but what tongue 
will not re-utter, what eye will not moisten again, in reading 
the words of poor Lawrence — "Don't give up the ship," with 
which he breathed out his patriotic, his unselfish soul ! 
And you, peerless Blakely, with your little ship of 18 guns, 
when, where, and how was your martyred fate? The na- 
tional renown has reaped your legacy of the capture of two 
ships of greater size than your own, and records your drawn 
battle, at night, with a frigate twice your size. Was it the 
eftect of her fire? Was it the jealousy of Neptune of so 
bold a champion for his highest honors? Did a mast fall — 
a })lank give way? What dark cause was it, that envelopes 
your loss in such painful, such sublime mystery ? 

This war taught us the lesson, " in peace prepare for war." 
When that with Mexico began, we had fortified our coasts 



13 

and had increased somewhat both our army and navy. 
West Point had stocked the former with military talent ; our 
revolutionary and other debts had been paid. The country 
had increased in population and gjrown rich. But Mexico 
was not an enemy to be despised. Santa Anna, the emperor 
of eight millions of people, possessed talent, activity, and 
address, and knew well how to draw out and combine tlie 
military resources of his country, as well as how to inflame 
the prejudices, national and religious, of its people, against 
los Americanos del Norte. He opened the ball by attacking 
our army on the Texan side of the Rio Grande, which he 
well knew we were resolved to defend. Taylor defeated him 
at Palo Alto and Resacade la Palraa^ and driving him across 
that river, paused on its banks for preparation to follow in 
pursuit. Two lines of advance were organized — one from 
Taylor's position on the Rio G-rande — the other, when Vera 
Cruz and its tutelary castle of San Juan de Ulloa should fall 
from that point. Taylor advanced and took Monterey and 
won Buena Vista. Scott beat the enemy at Cerro Gordo, 
Contreras, Churubusco, Molino del Roy, stormed the giddy 
heights of Chepultepec (Virginia and Pennsylvania hand to 
hand — Selden and Biddle first to mount the works,) and took 
them, and with them, what they had protected — (Quitman, 
by the gareta Belen — Worth, by the gareta San Antonia) — 
the Capital of Mexico — the halls of the Montezumas ! 

Unhappy Mexico ! how little have you profited by the light 
of republican civilization so near you— by the examples it 
has set you, both when we were weak and when we were 
strong, of moderation and humanity ! Your foremost man 
has put to death, in cold blood, one hundred and forty prison- 
ers, and whilst their bodies were yet warm, filled his house 
with revelry, dancing, and music ! Would that the agonies 
of these poor victims, of their widows, their mothers, and 
orphans, could, like Banquo's ghost, have been personified in 
that unhallowed assembly, and with one general cry of ■shame, 
liave drowned the music of its indecent orgies ! 

When the cruel Abdallah had dethroned the last of the Om- 
miade Califs, and placed on the throne of Damascus the first 



14 

of the Abassides, he made proclamation that he would pardon 
the sons of the late calif who should surrender themselves. 
When all had appeared except one, to the number of some 
fifty, he caused them to be surrounded by his soldiers and 
butchered, their bodies placed in a row, and covered with 
planks and cloths, and upon that horrible table served a 
sumptuous feast to his officers. The closeness of the parallel 
will carry Escobedo and Abdallah, together, down to posterity 
— perhaps lower ! ! I 

It is very agreeable to us of Anglo-Saxon blood and here- 
ditary distrust of standing armies — that our victorious Mexi- 
can army was composed in so large a degree of civilians — 
knowing nothing of war — but who, at the "stamp of the 
foot" of their country, sprang to its aid from the plough, 
the loom, the anvil. We claim the distinction amongst all 
the nations of the earth, that in peace every one is peaceful, 
in war every one a soldier. Give us an army sufficient to 
defend the frontier, and keep alive "the disciplines of the 
wars;" let West Point continue to furnish our Steubens 
and Vaubans ; let the squirrel gun and the primer supply 
our citizen soldiery, and we have the elements of success 
in every just cause. 

Diplomacy records our statesmanship, moderation and jus- 
tice. It is painful to speak of our first commercial treaty with 
Great Brtiain, negotiated by Mr. Jay, in 1794. By this 
treaty we were prohibited from sending our cotton or tobacco 
in our own ships to Europe. We were permitted to trade to 
the West Indies in vessels only of less than seventy tons. 
The treaty did not restrain England from searching our 
ships and impressing our seamen. The motives of England 
in forcing this shameful treaty on our infant government, and 
of General Washington in lending the sanction of his great 
name to its ratification by the Senate, are historic mysteries, 
of which the light of the blessed suns which have since risen 
over us, furnish the full solution. England had still re-sub- 
jugation, or at least commercial domination and monopoly 
on the brain. General Wasiiington knew by painful expe- 
rience the horrors of war, its uncertainties, its destruction 



15 

of property and waste of capital, the widows, the agonized 
hearts it left, and we may conclude, that although with some 
foreign aid he got well through the former struggle, he 
doubted whether the infant Hercules he was nursing had 
yet acquired the brawn to wield his club, single handed, 
effectively against his old enemy. Always for his country — 
never for himself — he shouldered the odium of this disgraceful 
treaty, and posterity has. in its just judgment, recognized 
the wisdom and patriotism of his conduct. The outrages of 
England continued, even to an attack upon an American 
frigate, the Chesapeake, and the forcible seizure, from under 
her guns and the stars and stripes, of three, perhaps four, 
native American seamen I We had to fight — of course we 
had! When we did, England bethought herself, and con- 
cluding to let go our property, but not our seamen, proposed 
to repeal her orders in council with a view to peace. Mr. 
Madison insisted on renunciation of impressment, which 
England declined. When I remind you that upon this 
single and naked issue between christian and enlightened 
nations, was shed so much blood in the latter part of this 
war, you can hardly credit the responses of your memories, 
the testimony of your ears. 

Mr. Sparks, who spoke of these things some twenty years 
afterwards, thought the (Questions of neutral rights and im- 
pressment would never be settled as long as England remained 
the mistress of the seas : which means, that as long as Eng- 
land remained a giant, and we a dwarf, she claimed the 
right to kidnap our citizens, whenever she had occasion for 
them ! And thus we see hoAv ingeniously nations, as well as 
individuals, can accommodate their ethics to their practice 
or their necessities. The questions so in reserve after the 
war of 1812, according to Mr. Sparks, were most probably 
settled by our achievements in Mexico, or if they were not, 
they certainly were by Admiral Foote, who demonstrated at 
Fort Henry the superiority of iron-clad to merely wooden 
ships. 

An English patriotic ballad runs : 

•' <Jli, long may the oak be the arm i)t' the hrave, 

And the mijilit of ohl En<ihin(l still walk on the wave." 



16 

Foote changed this complaisant pretension, thus : 

The oak is no longer, the arm of the brave, 
Since the iron of freedom is launched on the wave, 
And the might of old England, thus palsied, may weep, 
Whilst the sons of Columbia walk first on the deep. 

The purchase of Louisiana, as it was the most important, 
so it was, doubtless, the most adroitly managed of all our 
treaties. Upon the occasion of the general peace in 1801 
this territory passed from Spain to France. The conse- 
<[uences of the re-establishment of that great and ambitious 
power on this continent, and in juxtaposition with us, under 
the prestige of Bonaparte, then in the zenith of his career, 
justly alarmed Mr. Jefferson. He frankly stated to Bona- 
parte that this establishment, if carried into eiFect, must 
necessarily change the whole foreign policy of the United 
States, and force them into the arms of Great Britian, as an 
indispensable counterpoise to his power. This argument 
could not fail of its weight with the determinate rival and 
enemy of Great Britian, and wanting the $15,000,000, which 
Mr. Jefferson oifered, he signed the treaty. 

Other motives have been assigned, by rumor, to Mr. Jef- 
FERSOX, for his eagerness to get possession of Louisana, grow- 
ing out of the state of feeling amongst the people on the upper 
waters, and his apprehension that some irregular movement 
on their part to get command, by force, of the Mississippi might 
embroil us with both France and Spain. 

This purchase of Louisiana brought us to the sea on one 
side. The acquisition of Florida, that " cape of land" which 
stretches far into the gulf, and holds out its wedding finger, 
caressingly, towards the diamond cluster of the Antilles, 
brought us to it on another. That of California brought us to 
the Pacific and the Gulf of California, and the Messilla Valley 
gave us, in 1853, a southern line of route to the latter, as we had 
before had a northern to the former. In 1845 the virgin 
of Texas, flying from her would be ravisher, became the bride 
of Uncle Sam ; England and France standing by to forbid 
the bans, without reflecting how many wives or concubines 
they both had_, less honestly obtained. Uncle Sam, with 
true American gallantry, defended her Avith his blood, and 



17 

"slic has eat of his bread, and drunk of his cup, and 
lain in his bosom, and been unto him as a daughter." Ore- 
gon was always ours, since the Louisiana treaty, even to 
54 40, and Russian America is too recent an acquisition to 
have developed results. Perry, with a little of that wooing 
with which the lion is said to woo his brides, unlocked Japan, 
so long liermetically closed against christians. Our mis- 
sionaries are already at work, disseminating amongst its 
people the sublime truths of our faith. It appears that the 
Japanese frankly admit the superiority of the religion of 
Christ to their code of Confucius, but are shocked that our 
practice of the former is so much below theirs of the latter I 
As this allegation cannot well be denied, it would seem but 
equitable for them to send missionaries to us, in order that 
whilst we impart a better faith to them, they may impart a 
better practice to us. 

Our diplomacy has obtained from England, France, and 
other nations, indemnity for injuries suffered by our citizens. 
It will doubtless obtain from the former indemnity for the 
captures made by privateers fitted out in her ports, but this 
indemnity, claimed or paid, will not be a tythe of the profit 
which has accrued to her by her thereby getting the most of 
our carrying trade. Its final triumph may be to make the 
great highway of nations sacred to them all, where the un- 
armed shij) of any, its peaceable voyagers and unmilitary 
cargo, shall be as free from molestation as is, upon our com- 
mon roads, the unofiending traveller. England, France and 
America united, the three great naval powers, might accom- 
plish this desideratum, and do many other good things, 
conducive to the progress of civilization and the brotherhood 
of man. And why should they not so unite? They have 
had with each other, their several feuds and wars, bickerings 
and recriminations, but they, are now at peace, and are 
friends, thorough and unreserved. 

" Tlie liravc man knows no nialici', luit ;it ontf. 
Til iPoac'(-, tbrgots llio injuries of war. " 

La V'endee, so long in stubborn revolt, is now a loyal 
province of France. The immemorial antipathies of the 
English and French are in the deep bosom of the channel 



18 

bnricd. The Frencli and Spaniards who patriotically fought, 
reviled and assassinated each other, fraternize as the Latin 
race. The English and Scotch, whose ver)^ names were 
terms of reproach with each other, are "mingled into bliss." 
Are we behind these examples of moderation and magnani- 
mity? Has the latter portion of the 19th century retrograded 
in civilization ? Each of these nations has its virtues. Each 
may have its vices. We. do not like Napoleon's experiment 
to supersede us, Anglo-Saxons, on this our continent, and 
spread over it his Latin race. But the French helped us in 
our national parturition, and we admire their genius, chival- 
ry and good breeding. On the other hand, France does not 
like our brusque treatment of the unhappy Maximilian. 
We do not like England's oppression of Ireland, although 
it serves to give us, in the first or second generation, so many 
good American citizens ; but we admire her sturdy honesty, 
and that, on a recent occasion, she refused to join her Grallic 
neighbor, "to gouge us when we were down." We do not 
like to see the poor Highlander driven out of his hereditary 
fastnesses to make way for the deer park, the sheep walk 
and the cattle range; butEnglandmay equally exclaimagainst 
us for the melting away of our aborigines, whom frontier 
rapacity will not suffer the national humanity to reclaim 
and preserve ; in fine, we do not like England's rapacity in 
India, in Africa — everywhere, whilst we yet feel in ourselves, 
the same instincts, which come down from the Sea-Kings, 
the Vi-Kings, the Normans, through her, honestly to us, 
her American offspring. Let us be charitable, and allow for 
the necessities — perhaps the uses of national peculiarities. 
Savage tribes preserve and transmit their petty feuds, and 
fight ad internecionem . The mild dispensation which gives 
tone to the civilization of these great nations, commands 
them to forgive — to forget — -to love. 

You may have observed that amongst the enumerated 
powers assumed for the government, commerce is the only 
industrial interest named, thus indicating a more general 
favor toward that interest than any other. This predilection 
of the nation for the primogenita of civilized man, the hand- 
maid of agriculture and the arts, continued during a great 



19 

portion of our history and prompted many provisions lor her 
benefit and protection. To her ships are the monopoly of the 
coasting trade, a navy to protect them there and abroad, ex- 
peditions to explore new channels of enterprise, subsidized 
fisheries to raise them seamen, hospitals to receive these 
when sick, life-saving stations to rescue them and passen- 
gers from shipwreck, harbors, piers, sea-walls and break- 
waters, the triangulation of the coast, that stupendous work 
of which the lamented Bache was the genius, together with 
the lights that blaze all along its line to warn ships of danger 
whether from Scylla or Charibdis, But with all these aids 
to navigation, candor requires the admission that these are 
not the halcyon days of commerce. She has an envious 
younger sister. Under the compound pressure of the tarifi", 
internal taxes and the currency, the building of her ships 
and a large portion of her carrying trade are passing into 
foreign hands. Let us trust that these inauspicious days 
will ere long pass away, and commerce, beautiful in her snowy 
garments, be restored, untrammelled, to her heavenly ap- 
pointed mission of doing the peaceful exchanges of the world, 
and of carrying the lessons of civilization and the stoiy of 
the Messiah to the benighted regions of the globe, from pole 
to pole. 

The postal, patent and land departments (not amongst 
the enumerate powers of government) are happy illustrations 
of our policy, energy and progress. During and at the close 
of the revolution there were some twenty post offices in the 
country. Behold in 1860, 28,000. In no other country 
could such an increase have taken place, for in none other 
could there have been occasion for it. The emigration of our 
people to the virgin regions of the South-west and West, 
has been without distinction of persons or classes. The suc- 
cessive waves carry the laborer, the mechanic, the lawyer, 
the physician, the divine, the man of letters, of taste, and 
even wealth, who require in their new abodes, the church, 
the school house and the post-office, as much as they did in 
their former homes nearer the great centres. Nothing but 
the reality would make so rapid and amazing an increase 
credible. The growth of our postal system is that of the 



20 

mustard seed, which planted in this congenial democratic 
soil, has waxed a great tree, covering the land with its mul- 
titudinous branches and yielding its daily fruit — appropriate 
to every taste. 

One of the earliest acts of the government of 1789 was one 
to promote the ''progress of the useful arts," by securing 
to inventors the profits of their discoveries for a limited 
period. The beginnings of these inventions may have been, 
and probably were, small ; but what they were or how they 
progressively increased up to the year 1836, we can only 
conjecture, for in that year all the records and all the models 
were destroyed by fire. We know both the number and the 
ratio of annual increase from that year. In the next, ISo^i, 
the number of patents issued for inventions was 425. In 
1866, the number was *J,450. In the period from 1837 to 
1866, thirty years, the aggregate was 65,682. Can you con- 
ceive, can you form any satisfactory idea in your minds of 
the vast compass of American intellect, contrivance, care, 
experiment — involved in this astounding product? Or can 
you imagine the multifarious uses and diversified applica- 
tions of these many inventions ? How many new uses they 
have drawn for man from the elements of nature? How 
much they have aided that industry which "beautifies, 
adorns, embellishes, and renders life delightful?" 

The first thought of discovery, and the first but one of 
patriotism — is Franklin — for he brought down lightning 
from the heavens, and helped, next to Washington, to bring 
us up from the house of bondage. This double distinction 
of the philosopher and the statesman, has been fixed, trans- 
mitted and handed down to us, by the classical exergue, in very 
pretty Latiuity, of a medal, struck of him, in Paris: 
" Eripuit ca3lo fuhiien, sceptrunique tjranuis." 

FiTcii made steam a motor ; Parker invented the turbine 
wheel, which, but for a Frenchman, who made fame and 
fortune by his plagiarism, his countrymen would never have 
acknowledged. The acknowledgment came too late, and 
alas, he as well as Fitch (amongst the greatest of inventors) 
died poor. Ah, Cadwalader, how generously did you strive 
to save this ""poor and broken-hearted bankrupt" from his 



21 

fate ! Morse has had the luck to make his telegraph fjimous, 
and himself and some others that assisted him, wealthy. 
Whitney's cotton gin revolutionized the industries of the 
world. Who shall sing the virtues of the unpoetic sewing- 
machine, which has doubled the profits of Lynn, and e(|ually 
abridged the toil of the over-wroughthousewife, or the wonders 
of Bullock's printing press. Goodyear turned to infinite uses 
the almost worthless caoutchouc. Blanchard turned irre- 
gular forms — gun stocks, ship blocks, &c., and then, the 
most irregular of all, men's heads,WEBSTERS, Calhouns, and 
others. Generous man, your own never was ! Liberal as a 
prince, simple in your tastes, unostentatious in your gait, 
your example outvalues to your countrymen, the marvels of 
your genius — if they would only profit by it I 

Our jniblic lands have been one of the happiest ministra- 
tions, as they have been one of the most productive interests 
of the nation, having yielded so far, to the public treasury, 
one hundred and fifty-three millions of money. Starting 
with an accurate, mathematical and comprehensive system 
of survey, and beginning with a principal meridional line, 
followed by other meridional lines as extension required ; the 
whole of the public lands have been laid off" in parallelograms, 
varying in size from 40 acres, the sixteenth part of a section, 
to 23,040 acres, a township — comprising thirty-six sections. 
The sections in every township bear the like uniform numbers, 
from one to thirty-six, and in every township sections Nos. 
16 and 36, being 1,280 acres, are set apart for the support of 
common schools. It was a township of 23,040 acres which 
Congress granted some years since, with $200,000 in money, 
to General Lafayette in grateful remembrance, when the 
nation was rich and he was poor, of the services he had ren- 
dered when he was rich and it was poor; and in danger too. 

The recognized area of the colonies when they achieved 
their independence, was 341,000 square miles. • The treaty 
of peace and independence gave them the country back, and 
increased the area of the United States to 820,000 square miles. 
Our present area including Russian America, (the area of 
which is estimated at 500,000 square miles)is 3,750,000 square 
miles. 



22 

Of the unoccupied portion of this vast domain, we have 
granted for the promotion of education, in addition to two 
sections or one eighteenth part for common schools in every 

township, surveyed or to he surveyed 70,874,000 acres. 

To reward our sokliers 59,000,000 " 

To promote internal improvements 15,700,000 " 

To aid railroads ..160,000,000 '■ 

Swamp lands given up to the States 15,700,000 " 

Taken up, so far, in homesteads 5,000,000 "^ 

Allowing for the private claims and rights in the acquired 
territories more than two millions of square miles, after mak- 
ing all these sales and grants — -the unoccupied, the unsettled 
region of the nation — remain undisposed of, a surface equal 
to nearly two thirds of that of all Europe. 

The policy of granting a quarter section of land, 160 acres, 
as a homestead, without payment of money, and upon condi- 
tion merely of settlement and cultivation, encounters, now 
that it has gone into operation, no diversity of opinion. All 
approve it. It is a just pride to this association that it was 
hroached by one of its honorary members, the Hon. R. J. 
Walker having proposed it in the Senate, as far back as the 
year 1836, when he represented in part in that body, the 
State of Mississippi. 

What tho' the poor and broken down subject of the old world 
participate with our native citizens in the benefits of this law? 
Is there not enough for both and to spare? Have we the 
prerogative to monopolize more of these bounties of God than 
we can use, and to exclude others who need them and who 
are equally His children as we? This proposition involves 
the religious view of the subject, which may or may not have 
swayed the inner thought of the statesmen who determined 
the policy. The avowed argument is, that the foreigner, 
with "his young barbarians, all at play, and their Dacian 
mother" will yield more to the public treasury, in their con- 
sumption of dutiable articles than the stated price of the 
land, besides adding to the aggregate annual product of 
the country for consumption or exchange. 

And how beautiful are these fields, ready for the plough 
as they came from the hand of nature, where these home- 



23 

steads are being taken by all wlio bavo liarcl bands and 
primeval tastes ! How fertile of corn, comfort and content. 
If you bad seen, as your orator bas, tbe wife and tbe son oi" 
twelve years of age gatbering in tbe luxuriant barvest, wbilst 
tbe busband and fatber was away witb bis musket in bis 
band, you migbt readily imagine, as be did, tbat more tban 
one of tbese "young barbarians," or tbeir playmates of 
native blood, migbt be tbe future presidents of tbis great 
nation, for it was from tbe like rural scenes in wbicb tbey 
are being reared, tbat'tbe manly virtues issued and displayed 
tbemselves in our revolution, and in wbicb tbey since find 
tbeir favorite abode. 

Tbe mecbanic arts in activity and progress, tbe iron borse, 
labor saving macbinery in all tbe departments of industry 
and economy^ 35,000 miles of railroad in operation, 52,000 
of telegrapb, ocean steamers to Europe, tbe West Indies, 
Brazil, Japan, Cbina; our commerce on tbe lakes and in 
every sea ; in tbe fine arts, tbe gorgeous beauty of tbe cap- 
itol, its dome, statuary, tiling and frescoes, tbe classic 
cbastity of tbe Interior, tbe modest simplicity of tbe Post- 
Office, tbe Treasury of granite, its monolytbic pilasters and 
its Ionic columns, fluted and waved, its buttress caps 18 feet 
square and of 70 tons, tbe unparalleled beauty of its soutbern 
and western facades ; our statuary, painting, music and en- 
graving, not largely exotic, but mostly indigenous ; our 
cburcbes, so grand and imposing in tbe cities, so spontaneous 
in tbeir growtb on tbe frontier ; our costly missions to cbrist- 
ianize tbe beatben ; our oratory of tbe pulpit, tbe bar, tbe 
legislature and tbe stump ; our literature, 2000 volumes 
publisbed annually on bistory and fiction, poetry and etbics ; 
our press — 2500 newspapers, daily, tri-weekly, semi-weekly, 
weekly or montbly ; our cities —New York, witb its Fiftb 
Avenue miles of palaces ; its East river miles of masts ; its 
Croton, Park, Street Cars and suburban Steamers. Wasb- 
ington, our own — tbe capital of 35,000,000 of freemen, 
unparalleled in plan, ventilation and water ; its streets, nortb 
and soutb 80 to 100 feet wide, its avenues 120 to 1 GO feet, 
crossing tbem diagonally and forming at all tbose crossings 
nice little plats of various sizes and angles, wbicb, witb nu- 



24 

merous larger le.servations — the Capitol, the President's, the 
Smithsonian, Lafayette and others, all verdant with grass, 
shruhbery and trees, I'efresh the eye and give out their vivify- 
ing oxygen. These developments mark some of the achieve- 
ments in the line of progress and civilization, which serve to 
vindicate the right we assumed to an independent existence — 
to be a nation. These are some amongst the jewels which 
adorn the fair daughter of Columbia ; these amongst the 
flowers of varied grace and beauty, which bedeck the national 
parterre. 

Of the sectional disaster which has lately visited us, the 
events are too recent that you should be reminded of them — 
too deplorable for subjects of contemplation on a day of 
jubilee. The conflict is over and we are in peace. And as 
no Roman Imperator ever triumphed in a civil war, so let our 
choice leaders, who have carried us through this terrible 
strife Ije content Avith the proud sense of a high duty accom- 
plished. Let them glory that the Union is safe — Aveep the 
afflictions Avhich that safety has involved ; let them, let us 
all now lend our patriotic aid to repair the breaches in our 
common temple of constitutional liberty I Let us be one — 
the greatest nation upon the earth, in sentiment, devotion 
and nationality! 

And has women borne no part in the wonderful efforts, 
the astonishing successes and progress of our people? The 
mother of Washington trained him up to the great achieve- 
ments which he accomplished. And who shall deny to 
woman her full share of credit, not only for training up the 
sons of America, to these of ours, but for stimulating, 
countenancing and supporting them in their toils and suffer- 
ings. Man's helpmate in toil, comfort in prosperity, solace 
in woe. In youth, the sparkling eye, the delicate hand, the 
taper foot, stimulate us to every honorable effort. As wives, 
they are our best counsellors. Who does not know, how 
next to the bliss of heaven is his, whom a true American 
woman "has blessed with her love and made the father of 
her children." 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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